


Therapeutic

by ToFightOrToFlee



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Brotherly Love, Cookies, Eggman is mentioned a grand total of eight times, Feel free to correct me, Gen, Hugs, OOCness, Other Characters Are Mentioned, Sonic can cook and i will not be convinced otherwise, Sonic needs a hug, Tails is willing to give the hug, believe me i counted, i mean what else would him and Tails have eaten, i read this over so many times that i don't think i can improve it anymore but, lots of cookies, panic baking, people being ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 05:18:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToFightOrToFlee/pseuds/ToFightOrToFlee
Summary: "Ninety-six cookies, Sonic. You baked ninety. Six. Cookies."Or, in which Eggman has been suspiciously inactive and Sonic reacts in the only logical way. Tails chose to disagree.





	Therapeutic

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first story posted on this website! i feel like i'm doing everything all wrong. especially with the tags. but, y'know, learn from your mistakes. onward, young knaves!

Tails woke up with his nose twitching, a sweet, familiar scent filling the entire house. He groggily blinked and shook off his blankets, setting his feet on the floor. He stretched, yawned, and pulled on his shoes and gloves before stumbling out the door, following the scent of heaven. The room across from him was unoccupied, but that was normal for an early riser like Sonic. He was always gone before Tails even had a chance to say good morning.

The young fox tottered down the stairs, valiantly trying to scrub the sleep from his eyes. It helped, but only slightly. He nearly tripped on the last step and saved himself on the banister, peering around the corner and into the kitchen. He instantly felt his weariness drain away at the sight before him.

Multicolored plates covered in different kinds of cookies cluttered up every counter they had. Mixing bowls in varying degrees of emptiness sat in neat rows on top of the oven, spoons sticking out of each one. The fridge was open and empty, the cabinets raided and left gaping wide. Flour dusted the floor, walls, and even parts of the ceiling. Wadded up paper towels filled the trash can, as if someone had spilled something, panicked, and used way more paper towels than necessary.

Tails took all of this in, but his focus was not on the cookies, the flour, or the towels. Rather, his attention was fully focused on the flour-dusted hedgehog bouncing restlessly on the tips of his toes, measuring and pouring liquid cookie dough onto a flat greased pan.

Tails stared blankly for a moment, unable to comprehend the scene. Then he blinked, rubbed his eyes more, and took it all in stride. He’d seen weirder from the speedy blue hedgehog, and baking cookies was probably the least destructive thing he had done to date. He wasn’t about to ask the hedgehog to stop. Besides, the cookies smelled fantastic.

“What’cha doing?” Tails asked, as innocently as possible. Sonic gave a jump at the sudden question and dropped his spoon, nearly tipping the entirety of the cookie dough onto his shoes. He took the stance of a startled animal, curling his body around the bowl of dough, and whipped around, eyeing Tails cautiously before he relaxed and mustered a tiny, false smile. 

Tails immediately noticed the messy quills and dark rings around the hedgehog’s eyes and wondered just how early Sonic had gotten up. When he considered the room, however, he decided it must have been pretty early if he had enough time to make six batches of baked goods.

“Oh, Tails, it’s just you.” Sonic seemed far too relieved about that as he turned back to the cookies, fishing the spoon out of the dough and frowning at it. “I thought you might’ve been Egg- uh, Amy, or something.” He reached under the sink and ripped a paper towel off of the roll, wiping the handle of the spoon clean and tossing the towel into the trash pile. Tails pretended to not notice the slip-up.

“So what’re you doing?” He walked over to the closest plate and studied the contents. A dozen chocolate chip cookies lay there, arranged in a vaguely circular pattern. Light steam was still rising from them, the scent mouthwatering. He had to restrain himself before he ate half the batch. He didn’t want to be rude when Sonic had probably put quite a bit of work into them. 

Sonic put the extra cookie dough aside along with the spoon. The pan was now dotted with little brown circles of dough, not yet identifiable as a certain type of cookie, though the white spots indicated that there might be white chocolate chips. That, or he hadn’t mixed the flour in well enough.

“I’m cooking,” the hedgehog said plainly, grabbing a nearby mitt as he pulled the oven open. Heat flowed out of it in a visible, shimmering wave. Tails felt it from across the room. Sonic was unflinching as he reached in and pulled out another flat pan, covered in fully-baked sugar cookies. Without wasting a second, he put the sugar cookies aside and slid the new batch into the oven, setting the timer for twelve minutes. All this happened in the span of three seconds, almost too quick for Tails to follow.

“I can see that you’re cooking,” Tails belatedly said. “But, uh, why?” Sonic paused in the middle of wiping his bare hands off on a dish towel, looking cornered. Tails hadn’t even noticed that the hedgehog’s gloves were off and couldn’t help but stare, awed and a little curious. 

It was extremely rare to catch Sonic without his gloves on because the blue Mobian was more modest about his body than a nun. Even though male Mobians didn’t usually wear shirts or pants, gloves and shoes were pretty much the basics. Forcefully removing someone else’s gloves was extremely invasive, and not wearing gloves in public was often considered indecent. 

Shoes were a different story. They weren’t nearly as symbolic as gloves, but it was still rude to take off someone else’s shoes if they weren’t sleeping or injured. They were extra special for Sonic, though, since his specialized sneakers were the only ones that wouldn’t burn under the stress of his speed. He’d gone through many a pair of shoes before he had met Tails.

Taking one’s gloves off in front of another was a deep sign of trust for all Mobians, and Tails was extremely honored to be one of the people Sonic trusted the most. Even though he pretty much lived with Sonic all his life, he could still count the number of times he’d seen Sonic gloveless on one hand.

He realized that, in reality, Sonic’s hands were actually kind of small for a Mobian. His gloves must have had some sort of protective padding in place that made his hands look so much bigger. The fox mentally noted to ask Sonic to study his gloves sometime and find a way to improve them. He didn’t want Sonic’s gloves to get lost or ripped in battle if that was the case, even if it had yet to happen. It would explain how he could punch metal without hurting himself.

He abruptly shook himself out of his wandering thoughts and focused on the present. Sonic was looking a little cornered, eyes wide and his weight on his toes. He kept glancing out the window even as he reached into an above cabinet to retrieve a large black plate, big enough to hold the reasonably sized sugar cookies.

“I, er, noticed we had all of the stuff cookies are made out of. I was kinda hungry, and cookies sounded really good, so…” He waved a hand around at the baked desserts filling the counters. “Cookies.” Tails decided it was best to not mention that they had absolutely no sugar after the hot chocolate incident last week and their eggs had spoiled months ago.

“I see.” The fox glanced at Sonic again. The hedgehog was peeling the sugar cookies off of the pan with a plastic spatula and clumsily arranging them on the empty plate. He was shifting his weight constantly from one foot to the other as if itching to run off into the distance but unable to do so. His face was set in the unfamiliar expression of unease as he scraped a cookie off with a little too much force, sending it skidding across the pan. He muttered under his breath as he retrieved it.

“What kind of cookies did you make?” Tails asked, just so the room wouldn’t descend into awkward silence. He started to wander around, debating if he should help clean or not.

“A lot. I think there’s, um, peanut butter, chocolate chunk, chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, that fun kind with the rainbow chocolate candy, frosted, and now sugar.” Sonic held up a sugar cookie and waved with it, a weak smile crossing his face. “I forgot which one was your favorite, so I just made them all.”

“It’s chocolate chunk,” Tails reminded him, now eagerly searching the batches for his desired dessert. “Where?”

“The ones on the red plate.” Sonic haphazardly shoved the sugar cookies into an empty spot on the counter, joining the batch with the rest. “Help yourself.”

Tails did so with vigor. He had nearly forgotten how much he loved Sonic’s cooking. The hedgehog was so set on eating takeout and whatever people gave them that he had pretty much abandoned the kitchen altogether. Tails was reasonably upset, as some of his best memories involved Sonic in the kitchen. He had grown up on Sonic’s cooking and missed it dearly. 

Though during the first few months that Sonic began to cook, it was mostly trial and error for the blue Mobian. Tails never knew what would happen. Sometimes Sonic would create something unbelievable, and other times, he would create something that was unbelievable in a different way. They were both lucky that Sonic was a fast learner or it probably would have taken much longer for him to master cooking. Tails wasn’t sure he would have been able to last long on burned mac and cheese.

For a short while, the only sounds were Tails’s appreciative noises and Sonic’s constant foot tapping. The hedgehog crossed his arms and stood directly in front of the window, ears twitching and eyes focused on the horizon. It looked like he was waiting for something. Something that had been due weeks ago and still hadn’t arrived.

“You only cook when you’re stressed,” Tails said almost accusingly, stuffing his fourth cookie in his mouth. “What’s bothering you?” His cheeks were puffed out and filled with cookies, and he spewed crumbs when he spoke. His voice brought Sonic out of his trance-like state, making the hedgehog bristle as if he was physically attacked. He looked over his shoulder.

“What makes you say that?” Sonic attempted a grin. It was shaky, at best. “I used to cook all the time. You always begged me to make those cookies you liked.” His smile grew a little more genuine at the memory of Tails, a measly five years old, eyes watery as he pleaded for chocolate chunk cookies while clutching at twelve-year-old Sonic’s shoes. Since then, Sonic had developed an immunity to puppy eyes. Otherwise, they would’ve been much more unhealthy than what they already were.

“Not anymore.” Tails burped quietly. “You gave up cooking, remember?”

“No, I didn’t.” Sonic sounded a little more defensive than Tails thought he would, shooting the fox an almost offended look. “Did I say so? I don’t remember saying that I was gonna give up cooking.” He turned back to the window. “I only stopped because Eggman became such a big threat. I didn’t have time to cook anymore. And even  _ if _ I had time to cook, we wouldn’t have anything to cook with anyway.” He sounded as if he was convincing himself as much as Tails.

“True,” Tails relented mildly. “What changed, then?” Sonic shifted, his posture growing extremely tense. His knuckles turned white as he wrapped his fingers around his own arms, clenching his jaw.

“Dunno,” he lied obviously, focusing on the window. “I was just kinda in the mood.” Tails wiped crumbs off of his mouth and frowned.

“Sonic,” he sighed, “you don’t have to lie to me, y’know. I’ve pretty much known you all my life. I can tell something’s on your mind, but you just don’t want to tell me. It’s fine if you wanna keep secrets, but, well…” he looked up, meeting Sonic’s large, alarmed emerald eyes that peered over his shoulder, “I’m worried about you.”

That’s what made Sonic give in. Tails felt a little bad playing that “I’m worried about you” card, but it was his last resort to get Sonic to open up about his feelings. The hedgehog hated making people worry and would do anything to put them at ease. Now was no exception. Tails clearly saw Sonic’s resolve crumble as his face fell. He stared at the floor and scuffed it with his shoe, drawing vague patterns in the spilled flour.

“...It’s Eggman,” he finally said, voice small. It looked more like he was hugging himself than just crossing his arms. “He hasn’t made so much as a peep for a month now. I keep expecting him to show up out of nowhere with some kind of impossible plan to take over the world again, and I just…” This time, he twisted around to initiate the eye contact. “What if I can’t stop him this time? What if… what if I lose one of my friends because I wasn’t strong enough?”  _ Again…? _

Tails instantly understood, recalling the Gaia incident and felt a deep pang of sympathy. Eggman had unwillingly become a constant in their lives. He pelted them almost daily with half-baked plans for world domination or revenge. It had become therapeutic to crush his shoddy robots and dreams. They expected Eggman’s constant torment and they accepted it with grace, focusing a lot of their time on taking him out. But they had never truly lost a close friend.

The fact that the doctor had gone silent was definitely grating on Sonic’s nerves. If Eggman was actually taking his time to plan revenge and/or world domination, then there was no doubt it would be difficult to stop him. The man had an IQ of three hundred, despite his sometimes rather brainless plots. Whenever he took his time to plan, it always ended up with more trouble for Sonic and his friends.

Events including - but not limited to - the capturing of an entire alien race, plotting with his past self, threatening the world with a giant space laser, attempting to control an ancient evil fire god, and trying to drain the planet of all its life energy were a few of the plans that had obviously took a lot of thought to put together. The Mobians prevailed each time, but it was always much, much too close. Sonic had even died once. They were still trying to figure that part out.

Tails found himself spreading his arms out for a hug, unable to form words. Sonic accepted it instantly, burying his nose in Tails’s shoulder and squeezing desperately. He was trembling and struggling to stop, muscles stiffer than Shadow on a bad day. Tails let himself be a giant teddy bear, offering comfort in the form of tiny, hesitant pats on the back. Clouds of flour puffed up in response and he stifled a sneeze.

Sonic didn’t seem to notice and just stood there, clutching Tails like they were the last two people on Mobius. Tails distantly noticed that he was nearly as tall as Sonic now, and wondered how long it would be before he surpassed the hedgehog. Foxes usually were taller than hedgehogs, after all.

After a long while, Sonic took a deep, shaking breath and let go. Tails stepped back and smiled, looking into Sonic’s bright, watering eyes.

“We’ll win,” he said with as much certainty as he could. “We always win, no matter what. Eggman hasn’t beaten us before, and he won’t beat us now.” He raised an eyebrow teasingly, attempting to lighten the mood like Sonic would if the fox had been the one crying. “Weren’t you the one who told me to stop thinking about the what-ifs and focus on the present?” He was rewarded with a throaty chuckle as Sonic scrubbed at his face, ridding himself of unshed tears.

“Yeah,” the speedy Mobian rasped, blinking rapidly. “Yeah, you’re right. You’re always right, Tails.” He smiled. It was small, but it was sincere as he stared affectionately at his younger brother. “You’ve always been a lot smarter than me, huh?” Tails puffed out his chest.

“Of course,” he said with only a little smugness. “And I’ll never let you forget it!” Sonic laughed again, almost hysterical. Tails joined in, though he wasn’t very sure why. They were grinning like idiots when they stopped, panting for breath. Sonic dragged Tails into another hug, much more stable than the last. 

“Thanks, bro,” Sonic whispered meaningfully. “Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tails mumbled into Sonic’s shoulder, overjoyed to have his big brother back. Sonic backed out of the hug more quickly than the first time, still smiling. He opened his mouth to say something.

The shrill beeping of an alarm interrupted him, making both Mobians jump and turn to the oven. The alarm was going off, indicating that the cookies were done and needed to be removed. Sonic and Tails stared uncomprehendingly as the alarm continued to drone, growing increasingly insistent. Their brotherly moment had shattered like the Master Emerald.

Sonic darted forward with an oven mitt and hastily rescued the cookies before they burned, nearly scorching himself in the process. Tails helpfully retrieved a plate for them, and Sonic was quick to remove the piping hot cookies from the pan and toss them onto the plate in an unorderly pile. After a minute of comfortable silence, Sonic cleared his throat.

“So, uh, what’s twelve times eight?” he asked sheepishly, his expression showing that he already knew the answer but wanted to confirm it.

“Ninety-six. Why?” Tails tilted his head. Sonic coughed into his fist, a pink hue beginning to settle over his cheeks as he shuffled his feet.

“How many chocolate chunks did you eat?”

“Six.”

“How many cookies do you think you can eat now?”

Realization dawned. Tails’s eyes widened and his jaw went slack as he looked around again. He did the math in his head once. Then he did it again, just to be sure. Then a third, because he couldn’t believe himself. There were eight plates of cookies. Each one held a dozen, except the chocolate chunk. In all, it was about…

“Ninety-six cookies, Sonic.” Tails turned to his brother with a flat expression. Sonic laughed almost nervously, rubbing the back of his head and ruffling his already untamed quills. “You baked  _ ninety. Six. Cookies. _ ” Tails thought about how much flour and sugar would be needed for ninety-six cookies and wondered what kind of store Sonic visited to get all the ingredients. 

“It’s not that bad,” Sonic tried to reason, avoiding Tails’s burning gaze. “I mean, imagine if you didn’t stop me until later! Now that might’ve been crazy!” Tails tried to avoid the mental image of everything they owned being sold in exchange for baking cookies. He hadn’t thought he would ever have to picture that scene, let alone have Sonic as the cause of it. Then again, he didn’t know anyone else that would panic over their rival’s inactivity and bake ninety-six cookies.

“What’re we going to do with them all?” He stared at the cookies helplessly. “It’d be a waste to just throw them away.”

“And I doubt even I can eat ninety cookies.” Sonic nodded sagely with his chin in his hand. It took but a second before he snapped, eyes lighting up. “I know! We can give ‘em to everyone else!” Tails thought about it and smiled.

“Yeah, that could work! We can give ‘em each a dozen and keep our favorites for ourselves!”

“I know for a fact that Knuckles loves snickerdoodles. We’ll give him those!” Sonic was already wrapping the plates in generous amounts of plastic wrap. “And Rouge would probably want the sugar cookies. She says they’re her favorite.” He paused. “Do you think Shadow would like frosted?”

xXx

Everybody was more than a little surprised to receive a dozen cookies out of the blue. Sonic lied and said he’d asked a friend to make them instead of telling them the truth. He was afraid Knuckles would laugh at him for doing something so girlish. Amy would probably take it as a love confession or something. Cream would most likely force him into cooking with her. Rouge would never let him hear the end of “getting in touch with his feminine side”.

And Sonic probably would have had a much harder time convincing Shadow that he needed a dozen rainbow-frosted, sprinkled cookies in his life. The Ultimate Lifeform had only taken the cookies because Sonic promised to fight him someday with minimal sassy commentary, though he had said something along the lines of “even though I took them, I’m not going to eat them, and I’ll never do something like this again so don’t even try it”.

Two days later, he grudgingly gave Sonic back the empty plate and said, “Next time, leave out the sprinkles.”

Shortly after, Eggman came out of nowhere with a new, elaborate plot that would definitely take some time and effort to take apart. It wouldn’t be easy, and they would probably end up in countless near-death situations, but Sonic was more than ready. He faced the challenge with a cool smile and an endless supply of wit, his mouth moving almost as fast as his feet.

He didn’t get his favorite yellow plate back from the doctor, but that was alright. He’d just take it back when he destroyed Eggman’s base.


End file.
